"Guys, stop sexualizing women in your mockups"

These things wont change without regulations. Also when the models grant permission for their photos, they should restrict the usage within relevant areas / industries (depending on the way of appearance). Governing the relevance – looks like this wont happen anywhere as it is tough job.

While i share the sentiment of the article, and definetely agree that it is a problem, there are things that really irritate me about it.

First per definition it is really sexist by the author to only call men out on this topic. Its hilarious to me that people pretend only men do this while there are tons of women in the advertisement business, celebrity management business or fashion business and of course in the webdesign business who tell their models daily to “sex it up” in order to sell. So basically you try to change sexism while being sexist yourself, strange really.

And then we have the examples, there may be a point to be made of the first example, but calling out Meng To on sexualizing women for using a head, like seriously just a head, of a woman is ridiculous at best. If i were him i wouldnt know if i should laugh or be offended.

After all is said and done i have the feeling the author chose a polarizing topic in order to get a few hits to his blog and thats about it.

This is actually something I have toed the line with in a few of my themes, especially with my last one since I was actually going for a fashion-type site.

I made sure not to post any sexually-suggestive images (swimwear, lingerie, showing excessive skin/cleavage, etc), and to include men in the theme as well.

It’s definitely something worth talking about and it’s something I am definitely conscious of as I select photos for my demos, but the reality of the situation is that the majority of developers and our customer base are men and it’s an easy way to get their attention. At the same time, there has to be a level of decorum and responsibility that you are not crossing the line into almost using pornography to sell your product.

I personally don’t think it’s irresponsible to include attractive people (men and women) in your mockups, as long as it’s tasteful though. Where that line of tasteful is is what’s up for debate I suppose. But my wife and mother both approve of the images I use on my themes, so I would hope no one else would be.

It can also cost sales! I will not show a theme to a client if the images are even mildly racy. You lost a sale before you even had a chance!

I found the perfect template for a project – but that template had 2 images that are nothing more than a closeups woman’s breast. How in the heck does the author expect me to show the theme to my client with boobs on the screen?

Envato don’t care! I’ve actually went as far as submitting a support ticket about this theme. Their response:

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We will have it investigated and take appropriate action if necessary.